Blue Lady
by Leola Mae
Summary: We're all damaged in some way or another. Mine was etched on my skin. Her's she wore like a dagger strapped to her thigh. Short one shot written for a FWAR event. Emmett/Rosalie


Author's note: This is a short one shot I wrote for a FWAR event. I hope you like it.

Blue Lady

They called her "The Lady in Red." Many didn't know her name. Even fewer cared. She had a reputation for chewing men up and spitting them out. Used, abused, and thrown away – in the best possible way. "She's just like a man, but with all the right parts," they whispered with lustful admiration in their eyes. Even the music skipped a beat when she walked into the bar.

She wasn't there every night. There was no pattern, no rhyme or reason to when she would show, but night after night horny hopefuls filled the barstools, waiting for her arrival. Who would she take home tonight? Who would be the lucky prick to get his dick wrung out by the lovely, the brutal Lady in Red?

He knew all of this about her. He – the one man who refused to garner her sexual favor – sat on his doorstep instead.

At two a.m. on nights she went out, he turned the knob, sat on the stoop, lit his cigarette and waited for his Blue Lady. He didn't acknowledge the red silk dress that slid over her curves like sin, or her gold hair curled like talons. To him, she wasn't the dangerous viper the color of her dress seemed to indicate. He saw it for the armor it was – same as his.

He glanced down at the ink on his skin. It covered almost every inch of his hulking arms and chest. He'd spent hours, days, years putting it there, covering up the scars both literal and metaphorical. He was an expert at camoflauge and he knew it when he saw it.

She'd be back in about half an hour. Her hunting never took long, but she liked to draw out the dance – make it appear she was a challenge. She was, but not the way they thought.

The first ten or twenty times he'd stood on his doorstep offering her a choice, she didn't acknowledge him. She saw him, hyper-vigilant as she was, but that's all he got. His tenacity, however, eventually got him the stink-eye – several months' worth.

Next came the yelling and the name-calling. That lasted through fifteen or so conquests and he never said a word.

Ten one night, she'd left the side of her flavor-of-the-night and walked his way. He opened his arms, waiting for her. She gave him exactly what he'd expected; she spit in his face. He wiped it away and she took a stranger to her bed.

He counted it a victory.

The next time – his arms still spread wide - she walked up and slapped him. He cracked his neck and watched her stride away. Then kept vigil on his perch until the nameless nobody staggered away, punch-drunk on her prowess. Only then did he enter his house and shut the door.

Two days later, her car pulled up in her driveway, followed closely by some inconsequential assfuck in a jallopee. He took a drag off his cigarette then flicked it away and took up his stance. She climbed from her car. He opened his arms.

"Hang on a second," she said to the fucker with the greasy ponytail. Her heels clicked maliciously, steel spikes beating out her warning.

He grinned to himself and braced for impact. Both hands to his chest, she shoved him as hard as she could. Like a stone wall, he stood. She didn't move him an inch. He couldn't let her. She would see that as weakness and that's not what she wanted, no matter what she thought. She huffed and walked away without a word.

He was getting closer.

He didn't have to wait long. Her frequency was increasing. He watched through his window as she stood in hers the very next night, drinking that strange blue drink. Recognizing her tell, he called his buddy and canceled guys' night. His evening just got booked.

Another cigarette, this time under a full moon. Another half hour wait. He pondered many things in the time he waited for her, but he never once doubted. The wait was all there was, and he was a patient man. The scars he hid proved his endurance. He survived because he could outwait his pain, just like he would outwait hers.

The familiar sound of her purring Jaguar pushed him to action. He stood, stretched. When she opened her door, he was waiting, like always. Tonight she didn't even stop to greet her guest. Purposeful strides carried her to him and he took her abuse – a punch to the jaw this time.

Flexing it, he frowned as she held her hand to her chest and marched away. The hardest part was watching her hurt herself. But he couldn't interfere with the process. He knew what came next and cleared his schedule.

When his doorbell rang less than twenty-four hours later, he was standing on the other side, waiting. Always waiting.

This was the last time, he reminded himself.

He opened the door, and his arms. Words weren't necessary from him.

She came out fighting – a wounded cat, cornered and battling for survival. But he wasn't her enemy and taking what she dished was the best way of showing her that. She wailed on him for a good five minutes, fists to his pecks, shoes to his shins. The only thing he dodged was her knee to his groin. Everything else he absorbed with relish. She was wearing herself down.

"Why? Why?" she cried. "You judgmental, overgrown, freak of nature! Why couldn't you just be like everyone else? Tell me why!" she demanded.

He waited to speak. She wasn't ready to hear anyway. She needed this first.

When her pounding weakened and she collapsed, utterly exhausted, into his arms, flowing tears and snot so contrary to her usually perfect persona, he gathered her up and carried her to his living room. Sitting in the giant chair and cradling her in his lap, he shushed her until her sobs receded into hiccups and her hiccups receded into silence.

Voice hoarse and croaking, she spoke. "Why? I have to know. Tell me why."

"I told you the first time we met that you were mine. I protect what belongs to me." He placed his fingertips over her heart. "This is mine and I swear before God, Rosalie Hale, I'll never break it."


End file.
